Wayne Bennett’s incredible reaction to seeing Alex McKinnon paralyzed in a tackle – and his inability to forgive the player at the center of the horrific accident – has been revealed in a tell-all new book about the super-coach.
The Knights player was left quadriplegic in March 2014 when a tackle involving Melbourne Storm players Jordan McLean and brothers Kenny and Jesse Bromwich left him with fractures to his C4 and C5 vertebrae.
McKinnon, who was just 22 at the time, later sued McLean and the NRL.
Bennett was coaching the Knights at the time and in the hours that followed, he endured one of the most horrific and intense experiences of his long career.
It culminated with him crying in the back of the team bus, cradled by the huge embracing arms of Newcastle striker Willie Mason.
Now, almost 10 years later, the episode has been revealed in harrowing detail in journalist Andrew Webster’s book about Bennett, The Wolf You Feed.
Head coach Wayne Bennett, now 73 (pictured), was in tears after Alex McKinnon was left quadriplegic following a tackle gone horribly wrong and sought comfort in the arms of Willie Mason.
Jordan McLean (pictured with the ball) played a part in the shocking accident – and Bennett admitted he couldn’t forgive him
The heartbreaking events of one of the worst nights in football history are revealed in a new book about Bennett, The Wolf You Feed.
It is also revealed that Bennett still has not forgiven one of the three men involved in the tackle: Jordan McLean.
McLean went low into the hit and appeared to lift McKinnon’s leg as he fended off the Bromwich brothers, who were holding him high.
The combined weight of the tacklers saw them collapse on the Knights forward, who fell forward onto his neck.
McKinnon was rushed to Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital and placed in an induced coma – and Bennett came out in tears after going to see him, saying: “When I came out I was heartbroken.”
“When the other players noticed Bennett was crying, it made them cry too,” Webster wrote.
“Wayne is the Don, the Godfather, the King,” Mason said. “If he is shaken, we are shaken.”
Bennett was well shaken, but he was only ready to give his players a brief glimpse into his emotional gut.
“It’s the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me outside of my own family,” Bennett said. “But I had to pull myself together because these players needed me.”
Alex McKinnon in happier times when he was still married to his high school sweetheart, Teigan Power. They separate in January 2022
Today, Power is co-parenting while separated from McKinnon
Lying and scared in his hospital bed that night, McKinnon had no idea how much his injury had affected the head coach.
It wasn’t until years later that he heard about Bennett’s moment of vulnerability in Mason’s arms – and he wasn’t surprised.
“After my injury, we started talking as friends,” McKinnon said in the book.
“He wasn’t my coach anymore and he wouldn’t be anymore. He protects his vulnerability. He knows how powerful that is.
“He puts on masks for what needs to be done.”
The two men’s relationship may have evolved since the tragedy, but Bennett remained steadfast in his decision not to let go of his feelings about McLean’s role in the accident.
“Deep down, I still haven’t forgiven the player,” the current Dolphins coach said.
However, Bennett obviously feels differently about the Bromwich brothers, who both play for him at Redcliffe.
McKinnon forgave McLean after he admitted feeling “hatred” over the incident.
“It’s definitely something that occurred to me that I would like to sit down with him and have a different conversation,” he said in 2017.
McKinnon is pictured with his Newcastle teammates as he is honored on the Knights ground months after his life-changing injury
There were three men in the tackle the day McKinnon became paralyzed – Bennett has not forgiven Jordan McLean for his role but has clearly forgiven Jesse Bromwich (pictured with the coach this year) and his brother Kenny, who both play for him on the Dolphins team.
McKinnon faced another heartbreaking episode when his marriage to his high school sweetheart, Teigan Power, ended in January 2022 after 12 years together.
Following their split, both parties confirmed that the split was amicable and that they remained committed to jointly raising their children, twins Audrey and Violet, and eldest daughter Harriet.
Nearly a year after their breakup, they are still “very close,” according to McKinnon.
Bennett has also experienced a marriage breakdown since that terrible night in 2014, leaving his wife of 42 years, Trish, when he met Dale Cage.
Webster’s book also touches on this gentler, private but still controversial side of the great coach’s life.
Cage – who was regularly referred to as a “busty blonde”, “secret blonde”, “vibrant blonde” and “Benny’s blonde bombshell” in early media coverage of the couple’s relationship – said she was confronted to a torrent of abuse.
Bennett is pictured with his partner Dale Cage earlier this year
“I was called a homewrecker,” Cage says in the book. “I was the victim of a lot of online abuse back then, and it still happens.”
Bennett’s daughter Beth – who is married to former league star and now Queensland Rugby League chief Ben Ikin – sided with her mother during the split.
Cage, who is 22 years Bennett’s junior, told Webster that his partner is a man with “very old-school values” and not the arrogant character sometimes portrayed in the media.
“We can spend days together without doing or seeing anything, without getting tired of each other,” she said.
“Then, when we are apart, he calls me three or four times a day. Since we’ve been together, he’s called me every morning and every evening.
